{"id":866,"date":"2020-08-21T13:22:40","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T12:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/?p=866"},"modified":"2020-08-21T13:22:41","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T12:22:41","slug":"only-real-books-can-produce-real-readers-signal-64-remembering-elaine-moss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/only-real-books-can-produce-real-readers-signal-64-remembering-elaine-moss\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Only real books can produce real readers\u2019 (Signal 64) \u2013 Remembering Elaine Moss"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dr Hazel Sheeky Bird<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Late last week we received the sad news that Elaine Moss had\ndied, aged 96. Over a long career as a children\u2019s librarian, book reviewer,\ncritic, broadcaster and writer, Moss\u2019s impact on British children\u2019s books has\nbeen considerable. Never losing sight of the children<\/em> in children\u2019s books, she was a vociferous advocate for the\ncentrality of good books to children\u2019s literacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The great impact that children\u2019s librarians have had on\nBritish children\u2019s books has never really been acknowledged. As such, Moss\u2019s\nname and work may well be little known today. The fact is that for over 30\nyears, Moss worked tirelessly not only to promote knowledge about children\u2019s\nbooks but to also get them into the hands of children, teachers and parents. On\nreceiving the Eleanor Farjeon Award in 1976, the Children\u2019s Book Circle noted that\n\u2018it is not only her constant efforts to promote the cause of children\u2019s books\nthat single out Elaine Moss\u2019s contribution; it is her unique concern both with\ncommunicating her own enthusiasm for books as a medium of enjoyment and with\nbringing books for children to children<\/em>\u2019\n(quoted in Signal <\/em>23, May 1977).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Reproduced from Elaine Moss, \u2018Accepting the Eleanor Farjeon Award\u2019 in Signal<\/em> 24, Sept 1977, p. 119. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Looking back on her professional life (Signal<\/em> 91, Jan 2000), Moss described the beginnings of a career\nrooted somewhat in happenstance. Born in London in 1924, she recalled that\nneither of her parents was particularly bookish but she remembered her mother\nreading Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland <\/em>to\nthe family, and Moss herself was a keen reader. <\/em>At 16, due to the Second World War, she found herself school-less.\nAs she was fond of reading, her mother sent her off to the local library to ask\nfor a job . . . they put her in charge of the children\u2019s library. She read\nHistory at Bedford College giving rise to a particular interest in children\u2019s\nhistorical fiction in later life. After undertaking teacher training, she found\nherself working at a boarding school in Haslemere, largely teaching English to\nrefugees from Europe. This was followed by chartership examinations to become a\nlibrarian, although not a children\u2019s librarian, such a role did not exist at\nthat time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was Moss\u2019s experience of working with legendary children\u2019s\neditor Grace Hogarth that marked the real turning point in her career. Having\nhad to give up work on getting married, in 1955 she went to work as a part-time\nPA for Grace Hogarth, who at that point worked as a scout for four American\npublishers. A self-described \u2018Grace\u2019s girl\u2019 (Signal <\/em>78, Sept 1995) she credited Grace Hogarth as her mentor. By\n1955, Hogarth already had a network of women who worked for her as readers\nwhile also raising their families. When Grace Hogarth set up Constable Young\nBooks, Moss started reading for her there. It was here that Moss was introduced\nto fellow Grace\u2019s girl, Nancy Chambers; this was to prove fortuitous for both\nwomen, marking the beginning of a long association between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the 1970s, Elaine Moss was a prominent figure in her own\nright. As well as broadcasting on popular programmes such as Women\u2019s Hour,<\/em> from 1970 she selected the\nNational Book League\u2019s Children\u2019s Books\nof the Year<\/em> exhibition, for which she wrote its influential annotated\ncatalogues. In an era which is often regarded as a \u2018second golden age\u2019 of\nchildren\u2019s literature, Moss made an important contribution to the critical\ndiscourse around the subject, contributing articles to mainstream publications\nincluding The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian<\/em>, the Times\nLiterary <\/em>Supplement<\/em>, and The Spectator<\/em>,\nas well as to specialist children\u2019s book publications like Children\u2019s Book <\/em>News<\/em>. In so doing, she helped to define\nchildren\u2019s literature as an important part of British cultural life. Significantly,\nshe retained a foot in the real reading lives of children by continuing to work\nas a part-time librarian at a primary school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Moss\u2019s friendship with Nancy Chambers, along with their\nshared desire to give children\u2019s books the serious attention they deserve, led\nto Moss\u2019s close involvement with important children\u2019s literature journal Signal: Approaches to Children\u2019s Books <\/em>(1970-2003), edited by\nNancy Chambers. Moss wrote 46 articles for Signal<\/em>\nover its 100 issues, contributed an important chapter on \u2018The Seventies in\nBritish Children\u2019s Books\u2019 to The Signal\nApproach to Children\u2019s Books<\/em> (Kestrel, 1980) and, with Nancy Chambers,\ncompiled the indispensable Signal\nCompanion: A Classified Guide to 25 Years of \u2018Signal: Approaches to Children\u2019s\nBooks\u2019 <\/em>(Thimble Press, 1996). This body of work offers today\u2019s readers a\nclear insight into Moss\u2019s breadth of knowledge and the strength of her advocacy\nfor children\u2019s literacy through literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking at the twenty-second IBBY congress in 1990, Moss characteristically\nargued that uninspiring reading schemes did not produce real readers and that,\n\u2018If literacy in the developed world is to be worth acquiring in more than the\nfunctional sense, we should now<\/em> be\nconcentrating our efforts on ensuring that children of all social and economic backgrounds<\/em> are given the opportunity to\nsample, at an early age, the best stories and poems that folklore, true poets\nand authors of integrity can offer\u2019 (Signal<\/em>\n64, Jan 1991, p. 17). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Looking back at Elaine Moss\u2019s pieces in Signal<\/em> it is striking how relevant so much of her work remains. Two\narticles in 1978, \u2018Them\u2019s for the Infants, Miss\u2019 Parts One and Two (Signal<\/em> 26, May and Signal<\/em> 27, Sept) argued strongly for the use of picturebooks with\nolder children. Like other Signal<\/em>\ncontributors, Moss went on to develop this work into a specialist Thimble Press\npublication: Picture Books 9 to 13 <\/em>was\nfirst published in 1981 and by 1992 was in its third edition. It remains an\ninvaluable guide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of Elaine Moss\u2019s scrapbooks from the 1970s. Courtesy of the Seven Stories collection.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Today, Elaine Moss\u2019s work in Signal <\/em>is still accessible and relevant. Her voice is also a strong presence in the Aidan and Nancy Chambers archive, held by Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children\u2019s Books. As well as editorial material relating to her many contributions to Signal <\/em>and Thimble Press, it contains over 30 years of correspondence that offers unique insight into Moss\u2019s work and the British children\u2019s book scene from 1970 to the present. Anyone interested in knowing more about Moss and her work is fortunate as she donated her collection of 750 picturebooks to Seven Stories in 2003, and her fascinating collection of scrapbooks in 2009, which document her own contributions to multiple publications and offer a picture of how discourses around children\u2019s books changed over the course of the 20th<\/sup> century . It is only fitting that Elaine Moss, who made such an important contribution to the promotion of British children\u2019s books, is present in this nationally significant collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Banner image: Quentin Blake sketch drawn on being interviewed by Elaine Moss for Signa<\/em>l. Originally printed in Signal<\/em> 16, Jan. 1975, p. 33. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Dr Hazel Sheeky Bird Late last week we received the sad news that Elaine Moss had died, aged 96. Over a long career as a children\u2019s librarian, book reviewer, critic, broadcaster and writer, Moss\u2019s impact on British children\u2019s books has been considerable. Never losing sight of the children in children\u2019s books, she was a vociferous … Continue reading \u2018Only real books can produce real readers\u2019 (Signal 64) \u2013 Remembering Elaine Moss<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7893,"featured_media":869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[257,289,99,290,292,279],"class_list":["post-866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-childrens-book-archives","tag-elaine-moss","tag-libraries","tag-nancy-chambers","tag-scrapbooks","tag-signal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":881,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions\/881"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}